Leonard Levin, MD, PhD

Dr. Leonard Levin is a tenured professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and Neurology & Neurosurgery at McGill University, and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology. He is a physician-scientist at the Neuro, where he carries out research related to optic nerve diseases and related disorders.

Dr. Levin received a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Applied Mathematics at Harvard, where he did an honors thesis designing a language for computer-assisted music composition. He received his MD in the Harvard/MIT joint program in Health Science and Technology and a PhD in neurobiology, focusing on research relevant to multiple sclerosis. He then pursued an ophthalmology residency and neuro-ophthalmology fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

His research program focuses on mechanisms of retinal ganglion cell death at the molecular, tissue culture, and whole animal level. This includes the role axonal damage plays in inducing loss of retinal ganglion cells and how axons themselves undergo injury, an area common to ophthalmology and neurology, and one directly tied to optic nerve diseases. He uses advanced imaging techniques to study signaling of cell death in the retina and how this can help in the development of new drugs for optic nerve and retinal disease, including novel drugs that his laboratory has developed. Dr. Levin is particularly interested in the challenges associated with successfully translating basic science research into clinically effective therapies, and has been involved with the design and assessment of clinical trials to study neuroprotective therapies in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies. His funding has been from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the United States National Institutes of Health, the Glaucoma Foundation, the Glaucoma Research Foundation, and several others.

Dr. Levin’s research has resulted in more than 170 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and book chapters, and 4 issued patents, all related to eye disease. He has edited five textbooks in ophthalmology or neuro-ophthalmology, including Neuro-Ophthalmology: The Practical Guide, Ocular Disease: Mechanisms and Management, and the 11th edition of Adler’s Physiology of the Eye. He has written chapters or edited sections of many of the major textbooks in ophthalmology. He was previously chair of the Diseases and Pathophysiology of the Visual System study section at the United States National Institutes of Health, past chair of the Association of Canadian University Professors of Ophthalmology, and currently chairs the Executive Scientific Oversight Committee for the Audacious Goals Initiative at the USA National Eye Institute, which has the major goal to restore sight to those with irreversible blindness.